travelling allrite

The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular was performed in Melbourne on Saturday the 4th of February and naturally I had to attend. The three of us flew down with Qantas on the Friday for a couple of nights stay in my favourite Australian city. Apart from the fantastic concert ( review here ), we also visited the Melbourne Zoo, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Queen Victoria Markets and just wandered the city on train, tram and foot. All in all a really enjoyable long weekend and I can't wait to return to Melbourne in the future. You can read more about the trip with links to the photo albums at allrite@ Materialising in Melbourne .

After two days of hot weather and mostly blue skies we awoke to high wind. Not the kind of weather that I wanted to fly in, but what choice? Outside our window a shadecloth had torn free and was flapping wildly across an outdoor dining area. A hot buffet breakfast was included in our room rate. Despite the quantity of fruit consumed it was not the healthiest way to start a day. To ensure a better diet on our return to Sydney we took a walk through the Queen Victoria Markets, a couple of hundred metres from the hotel. The markets were delightfully relaxed in comparison to a recent visit to Paddy's Market in Sydney. We always get great fruit when in Victoria and the big Tasmanian cherries and the peaches we purchased were no exception. There was no similar success in locating a pair of shoes for Alex, but the market was still a pleasant stroll. I had forgotten to book a free bus transfer to the Skybus terminal, so we treated Alex to another train ride from Melbourne Central on to...

Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular: Sold Out said the poster in front of the Melbourne Town Hall. Take that, dead boring classical composers! That's what a childhood of exposure to ABC Classic FM has done to me. Oh dear, I hope Alex won't think the same of film music one day... No such problems right now! We were walking along Swanston Street as noisy earthmoving equipment churned up the tram tracks beside us. It was incredible to think the trams would be running again in a couple of days time. Our destination was Federation Square and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). Fed Square is a devisive piece of architecture, a jumble of metal panels at odds with the old architecture of St Paul's Cathedral and Flinders Street Station that surround it. I like it. It houses SBS broadcasting, the Australian collection of the National Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, a place I had discovered on my last visit and now wanted to share w...

I grew up with Doctor Who and today it's the one television program everyone in the house sits down together to watch. Since its revival in 2005 the world's longest running science fiction television series has employed the services of Murray Gold to compose its fantastic soundtrack. When I discovered that the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) would be performing a concert of Doctor Who music in their home city I was ready to book straight away. My last trip down to Melbourne , back in March 2011, was a day trip to hear the MSO perform John Williams music. Unlike that trip, this time both B and Alex were coming too, so we decided to make it into a mini holiday. I love my birth city of Melbourne and feel like I don't visit it often or for long enough. Alex couldn't wait. He was pestering us to go to the airport and catch a flight for weeks. We worked out that, with an early-bird deal, that the short term parking at Sydney's Domestic Airport was not too much higher...

March : Flew to Melbourne for the day to listen to a MSO John Williams concert. March : Flew to Thailand, visited Bangkok and Chiang Mai, rode elephants, petted tigers. March/April : Onward flight to Fukuoka in Japan, trains to Nagasaki, Yufuin, Oita, Beppu, Kumamoto, Osaka, Kyoto. Onsens and hells. May : Day trip to Canberra for work June : ***** July : Three days in Canberra for work October : Up to Rockhampton for my sister's wedding November : Our 10th anniversary trip to Europe via Kuala Lumpur. Stopped in the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Switzerland and France. Passed through Germany. December : Overnight stay in Canberra for work. Visited a total of nine countries, ten if you count Australia. Twenty-five flights on seven airlines (or nine if you count regional subsidiaries). Fourteen different aircraft types, counting subtypes. Countless trains. Already booked what's likely to be our first trip of 2012. Almost the same as in 2011: down...

More than a month has passed since our trip to Europe. The story of the trip is written on allrite@ , but now I wish to sort out my impressions of the journey. After the excitement of the journey itself what you are left with is your memories, the ultimate souvenirs of your holiday. Highlights for me were the sight of the Malaysian Airlines 747 waiting like an old liner in dock to carry us on an adventure. The red Australian desert and the dry but snow capped mountains of Afghanistan, mysterious lands with few inhabitants but many stories to tell. A relaxing transit hotel at Kuala Lumpur's International Airport that was just what I wanted and modern and spacious accommodation near Paddington station. Standing atop Het Gravensteen castle and gazing across the amazing historic skyline of Ghent in Belgium. Belgian chocolates, waffles and fries. Eating a continental breakfast in our deluxe sleeper compartment while outside the pretty villages of the Elbe Valley rolled past...